08-03-99 One of the reasons why I started writing a journal and rants and such was to try and teach myself to speak better with words.  I speak more through tones and emotions than with words, and often if I find myself debating through a text medium or in an overly emotional situation I have to back away and form what I need to say after  thinking about it for awhile.  Unless I have a clearly defined point that I can defend in a chat-room argument I usually have to back out.  Likewise if I don't have a clearly defined point in a verbal argument or I'm all tangled up in my emotions. This came to head yesterday.  My husband has monthly meetings with one of the priests at my church and I assume that during this month's discussion the fact that I spend a great deal of time on the computer came up and how to deal with that. Scott came home with half a dozen roses... and then turned off the computer while I was in the middle of three different projects.  An e-mail I had been composing for the past half hour vanished, two different conversations I had been having were instantly cut off, and the websearch I was  doing about cat behavioral problems had suddenly ceased to exist. I knew the moment it happened that it had been advised to him my the priest.  It sounds sweet in words, doesn't it?  Hand her some roses, turn off the computer, be sweet and romantic... everyone's hunky-dory. Except I was about as happy as someone who had just shot me in the foot.  I'd just lost my work, had my conversations abruptly cut off, and the half hour of websearching I had done to get to the obscure pages I was at had just vanished into thin air.  He hadn't even asked if it was alright, just *click*.  This may have been a romantic gesture for some... but for me it was about as romantic as a kick in the face.  Had I been asked permission that would have been one thing, but this was abrupt  and rude. I was pissed, and I was getting more and more pissed off by the second.  I checked to see if I could recover my work and came up with nothing, finally in a huff I went to bed and tried to take a nap.  My husband, hoping to patch things up, was right on my heels.  I did my best to ignore him as I layed in bed and tried to calm down.  My arm hurt because I was laying on  it wrong and my glasses were pressing into my face rather painfully.  My tense muscles refused to relax and I had to fight back the urge to scream at the top of my lungs and physically force my husband out of the bed. My brain was flashing ideas like waiting for him to go to the bathroom and then leaping out of bed, grabbing my car keys and driving SOMEPLACE away from where I was just to get some privacy back.  The small shred of logic that remained in my brain pointed out that I shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car when I was on the verge of a howling rage and I managed to tamp that urge down.  I never did fall asleep, but the moment my husband did I went back into the computer room and locked the door behind me.  I stayed there until I calmed down. I think the thing  that bothered me about the issue the most was the invasion of my personal space.  It's something I get from childhood.  I never had any privacy.  My mom would walk in on me if I was going to the bathroom and rarely closed the door when she was going.  She barged into my bedroom without ever knocking and when I installed a lock she tore it off.  She would constantly rummage through my stuff and would talk about my personal hygiene problems with anyone she could.  Several times she would sweep through my room and destroy very personal items of mine in the process without a care.  She had no qualms about walking in when I was changing clothes or stripping in front of me.  She had no respect for my personal property and would take things from me and give them to other people without even asking me.  I'm still missing several rare videotapes that she loaned to my sister.  It was like living in a glass cage. Because of this I am deeply protective of my personal things and my privacy.  When I let someone use something of mine it's an act of trust.  A delicate trust that's a balancing act.  Most of the time that trust is respected, but sometimes it gets shot down and I'm reminded of my mother's treatment which launches me into a rage.  My mother would have walked in and turned off the computer to get my attention. So after being useless and pissy for four hours we got better.  I calmed down sufficiently enough to explain things to Scott and why I was so angry and we managed to kiss and make up, although I also made a point of letting him know that I would no longer accept marital advice from this priest. In all honesty, I now dread returning to church again because I feel like he'll look at me and think "There's Gen, Scott's lazy-ass bratty wife."  It's not something I really feel like dealing with. It's just that I am not the priest's wife, I'm my husband's wife and nobody else's.  I'm also not your average woman and do not react in ways a woman would.  I cannot be bribed with pretty flowers and gifts, I am not impressed with flashy things and romantic gestures if they invade upon my private space.  I have unresolved issues I'm still trying to come to terms with, I don't deal with being corrected very well nor do I deal with discipline very well either.  I'm used being corrected to be an act of humiliation, where my sins are exploded up in my face for the  sheer purpose of making me an easier target to grind underfoot.  I'm used to discipline being unfair, sudden, and greatly overdone -- not to mention an excuse to be made to feel superior over me.  It's been over three years now, but I'm still trying to recover.  My scars run very deep.  when I find myself in a situation like that I instantly erect the walls I learned to build up to keep the insults out. A good example is my inability to eat broccoli without throwing up.  when I was about eleven my mom would cook lunch for me and my stepfather.  My stepfather took a great delight in humiliating me because I didn't like to eat broccoli.  All trips to restaurants consisted of "Let's get a big plate of BROCCOLI!!!  Yum yum yum!" and I think that at times they deliberately picked restaurants I didn't care for simply because they hoped it would force me to eat -- instead I'd usually sit there with just a drink while my parents pigged out and get hounded by the wait staff about why I didn't have anything.  To add insult to injury the entire meal usually had snide comments from both my parents about how my eating habits were so awful.  Going out to eat with my parents became a period of punishment and dread instead of enjoyment. At home I would be made to sit at the table and under threat of violence forced to eat the stuff.  My fear of being beaten and accompanying anxiety combined with the plain fact that I didn't like the taste of broccoli made me unable to hold it down.  When I threw up I was punished and had more of the stuff put in front of me.  When I refused to eat it I was insulted and made to sit in my room alone with nothing to eat, and usually I was beaten even more soundly.  I can't imagine how a child throwing up could be seen as something done on purpose.  Maybe if I stuck my finger down my throat and gagged myself, but I didn't do that.  I did *TRY* to eat these foods, but the fact that I tried them and threw up was treated exactly the same as if I had simply turned my nose at it. So because of this I still can't eat the stuff without vomiting.  I can't eat a lot of things without throwing up... because of this I usually cook my own meals.  Oddly, I like more of a variety now simply because of encouragement from my husband rather than from being forced to eat something.  I like caesar salads and pastas.  I like certain raw vegetables and rice dishes.  Back when I lived at home I never would have tried Fettucini alfredo or a chicken caesar salad. I still don't like broccoli though, and I have a knee-jerk reaction to certain corrections of my behavior out of fear of being insulted or punished.  I've also sworn a personal vow to never discipline or choose a discipline when I'm angry.  After seeing what comes from punishing a child in a rage when the kid can't honestly help what he's doing I want to do my best to never do it myself.  I also should not enjoy  punishing my children.  My stepfather seemed to enjoy teasing me about my eating habits and encouraged his own son to tease me as well.  I don't think he ever realized how much it hurt, and it obviously didn't bother my mom either as she never stopped him from teasing me.  (I add this part because my mother is probably reading this, and she's already acting like a superbitch to my stepfather... I see no need to encourage her to be moreso when she's not completely blameless in  the matter) But back to the problem of the computer... I know I have to do something, but I don't know what.  I've been through counseling before and it hasn't done a thing for me.  I've been on medication before and it just made me too sleepy to care.  So for now I think I'm just going to try and figure things out on my own.  No priests, no counselors, no drugs... just some motivation and hope for the best. Why the hell couldn't I have had a less fucked-up childhood?  It might have made me a less fucked-up adult. Still though, there's some positives to it.  It doesn't reflect in completely positive ways but there's still a few plusses.  Let's see... I can spot manipulation games women play on men miles away.  I can psychoanalyze any situation instantly and come up with a solution for most problems.  I can keep a cool head in an argument most of the time.  And most importantly, I've learned not to put up with any crap from folks who seem intent to shovel it in my face. The drawback to this is that I have a low tolerance for certain  types of behavior.  If someone starts to sound in the slightest bit self-piteous or whiny I shut them off mentally.  If they continue and expect me to pet their heads I instead have to bite down on the urge to backhand them. I could stand to be more patient and less cynical probably... but I don't think I'm completely unfair and stand by my philosophy of rejection and consequences being the best teacher sometimes.  If folks know that if they howl enough they can get what they want they'll start howling over every little thing.  Just like if a bratty child knows that if he makes a spectacle of himself in public he'll get a new toy.  At the same time though my own childhood experiences have taught me to discern someone doing something to get attention and someone doing something because of an actual problem.  I never screamed or had bratty bawling fits in restaurants I didn't care for as a child, I simply got a drink and did without.  I think I might have quietly cried simply because I was hungry but I never made a spectacle of myself. (When you're ten years old and the food you're eating is going into energy to make yourself grow, missing a meal can be physically painful at times.)  Besides, what would have been more of a spectacle, a child that isn't having dinner or a child forced to eat something and spewing the contents of his stomach all over the floor? Usually the folks that scream the least are in the most pain.  The ones that scream the loudest just want attention. BACK